Some Songs Considered

“If I Could Talk I’d Tell You” – The Lemonheads
(Words/music: Evan Dando and Eugene Kelly, available on Car Button Cloth, Atlantic 1996) 

While much of the world watched LeBron James announce his departure to Miami last Thursday night, I tried my best to read his lips.  Earlier in the day, I made the choice to pass on “The Decision” in order to see the Lemonheads play in Milford, CT.  Even though I couldn’t pry any of my friends (most of which silently hoped James would play for the Knicks) away from the announcement, I still went with little to no idea what to expect in setlist or lineup, save for Evan Dando.  If nothing else, I was curious to see what this current incarnation had to offer.

What transpired caught me off guard.  Dando, backed by two members of the opening band The Candles, plowed through almost all of the high notes from his catalog.  The songs sounded as effervescent as ever, with Dando’s voice miraculously sounding like his mid-‘90s prime.  The most striking part, however, was the crowd.  A majority of the crowd looked a few years older than me (a stark inversion of how I usually feel at shows these days) yet erupted with unbridled joy at an astounding frequency.  Within a few notes of just about every song, hands clapped and voices whooped in approval, shortly followed by many singing along.  This wasn’t just on the hits (of which there were many, at least relatively speaking) but literally every song.  Dando, who grew a bit more skittish in his banter as the night progressed, nonetheless fed off the crowd’s enthusiasm even as he flubbed a couple songs.

The most telling part of the night came in the introduction to “If I Could Talk I’d Tell You.”  The song features the kind of simple yet infectious melody and spry accompaniment that Dando seemed to churn out effortlessly in the early ‘90s.  Even if it wasn’t at the top of the list of songs I wanted to hear (“It’s a Shame About Ray” and recent favorite “No Backbone”) or the one I was most excited to hear (a solo cover of Big Star’s “Night Time”), it was the most indicative song of the set both in composition and in audience reaction.  “This next one starts with a drum fill,” he said, tinkering with the tuning knobs on the top of his road worn white Gibson.  “You all know how it goes.” He was right – people bobbed their heads and sand along to the song, but it wasn’t unique to this song.  It was one of the most enthusiastic crowds I’d seen in a long time.  My guess it was repayment for a disproportionate number of classics and personal favorites. 

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“No Backbone” – The Lemonheads
(Words/music: Evan Dando and Tom Morgan, available on The Lemonheads, Vagrant 2006) 

For a while, Evan Dando slipped out of the spotlight.  When he brought back his Lemonheads moniker roughly a decade after their last record, Dando came out swinging.  He borrowed the rhythm section from punk legends The Descendents and tore through a collection of songs that seemed to reclaim the “pop punk” label from the mall punk popular during that time.  These songs worked well because they leaned on Dando’s strengths, particularly his gift for melody and his relaxed voice.  However, these tunes benefited almost as much from the Descendents’ paunchiness, giving Dando’s songs a snappiness that highlighted their melodies. 

For all its strengths, though, J Mascis’ guitar dominates “No Backbone.”  From the second Mascis puts pick to string, his nimble lead guitar takes center stage.  Even when it plays a supporting role to Dando’s vocals, Mascis’ fills seem to spur on the rest of the band.  Even without a punchy rhythm section supporting his songs, “No Backbone” would hold up with the rest of Dando’s upbeat compositions.  By adding Mascis to the mix, Dando ensures that his comeback set hit all the right notes.  Even if Dando had an eager audience willing to give any new batch of songs a try, it sounds like he wasn’t taking any chances with anything less than full speed ahead. 

More on The Lemonheads: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“It’s a Shame About Ray” – The Lemonheads
(Words/music: Evan Dando and Tom Morgan, available on It’s a Shame About Ray, Atlantic 1992)

“It’s a Shame About Ray” fascinates me because it hints at a story more than it actually tells one.  Evan Dando laments someone without giving a specific reason why.  The best guess is that Ray is gone; it could be anything from Ray just leaving before Dando arrived to moving away to passing away.  It doesn’t really matter, because this lament ends up telling more about Dando’s narrator than about Ray.  Whether intentional or not, Ray becomes an excuse for the narrator reflect on himself.  He tells us that he’s “never been too good with names” twice, and in between he suggests that he’d be better off putting his feelings back with the cobwebs – hidden away in a place rarely touched.  Whether he’s an introvert or he’s extracting a lesson from Ray’s situation, the narrator sounds resolved to keep to himself for a little while.

Thankfully, the entire song isn’t as mopey as it sounds.  Dando sings with a deceptively melodic voice; he isn’t belting out the song like an arena rock singer, but he still projects his voice with a bright tone.  In an era where singers hid behind their hair and a wall of distortion, Dando puts his voice front and center (ironically with an introverted narrator).  Even with his generally upbeat tone, Dando finds just enough sadness in his notes at the right times.  Perhaps the moderate tempo helps to give the song a general melancholy quality around the end of the verses, but something about the melody keeps it from completely contradicting the lyrics.  It’s difficult not to let the music influence the story in the lyrics, but with so few clues in the narrative it doesn’t feel like too much of a leap to suggest that even while he laments Ray, he feels like it’s for the best (whether for him, for Ray, or for all involved).  Perhaps that’s just the optimist in me hearing what he wants to hear.

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“It’s About Time (Live on 120 Minutes)” - Evan Dando
(Words/music: Evan Dando and Tom Morgan, available on MTV’s 120 Minutes Live, Atlantic 1998)

The Lemonheads, Evan Dando’s band, are best know for a cover song (“Mrs. Robinson”) and this week just released an album of covers.  It’s a shame that Dando’s legacy will likely be associated with a cover song because he wrote songs that are just as good as the songs he covered.  This performance of “It’s About Time” recorded for 120 Minutes showcases one of Dando’s lesser known songs.  He makes the song’s guitar riff heavier on the backbeat, but otherwise Dando focuses solely on the guitar and vocals.  Even without his band, Dando manages to pull off all of the subtle shifts in the song.  Specifically, he exaggerates the dynamics by bringing the song to a near whisper and building back up (the original version relies on the drums to drive the volume back up).  Dando’s always known how to play to his band’s strengths, whether it was using Juliana Hatfield’s backing vocals sparingly or writing driving yet melodic songs when members of The Descendants were his backing band.  However, in this solo setting Dando can’t hide anything behind these flourishes.  Instead, the focus lies strictly on Dando’s voice and his song.  “It’s About Time” stays engaging even without the band’s muscle largely because it’s an interesting composition.  Sure, it’s not the same without Hatfield’s high notes on the final chorus, but Dando’s solo version for 120 Minutes showcases the skill in his songwriting.  It’s important to know how to use your band’s strengths to complement your songs, but even the most skilled musicians will fail without solid material.  Evan Dando wrote some of the best power pop in the early 1990s, but I’m afraid he’ll only be known for ushering in the era of the punk cover of bygone classics.

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